We need to focus on population growth

I had mentioned this in another article but I thought it deserved its own time. The conservatives are worried that our grandchildren may be inheriting a mountain of debt that will hamper their quality of life. This is a very valid concern. We cannot continue to spend money we don’t have forever. The house of cards has to come crashing down some time. The liberals don’t understand that there is a limit to what we can do to help people. People must learn to help themselves. This worked well enough in the past, why can’t it work now?

The liberals fear that our grandchildren might be facing a world of limited resources; that might leave them in a collapsing civilization. Conditions indicate that our grandchildren may be facing great peril and they don’t understand why the conservatives don’t see it. It is funny that it is the liberals that want to conserve and not the ones named after the notion of conservation. In any case, the liberals also fear for our grandchildren’s future.

Now here’s the thing. Both of these fears have their route in the same problem. That problem is over population. The reason we are spending so much money is that there are so many people that need help. We aren’t providing anything lavish for anyone. Yes, you can argue about who should get what but the bottom line is there are a whole lot of people in this country and almost every one of them will need something from the government sooner or later. The old libertarian idea of a very simple government, and people fending for themselves, works fine with the population of the eighteenth century when there were no more than a couple million of us, but with a population that is hitting a third of a billion, that simply won’t work. Pooling resources is the only way and that method won’t work forever. That population will eventually get to the point that programs will not be able to stretch to support everyone. The very notion of a national government may begin to unravel when we reach a billion or more, and that may be sooner than you think.

The fight for natural resources is coming, if we continue to populate the planet at the present rate. The deal is we won’t continue to populate the planet at the present rate. The rate of population growth is increasing every day. This means the day when the resources on this planet can no longer sustain the people on the planet comes closer every day. Yes, you can debate about global warming, is it a problem or not? There is no way you can debate the problem of over population. All you have to do is look at the census over that last century and the projections through this century. There is a breaking point coming and it just may be our grandchildren that will have to face it.

Doing something about this problem is very difficult. It is a natural instinct to procreate. The countries that rely more on manual labor have a stronger drive to produce more children. More children means more hands to help with the work. That is what the chart above clearly shows. It also shows that the world population will almost double by the end of the century. That is a big problem and a problem our grandchildren will be facing.

I know what you’re thinking, developed countries are doing their part, we need to get the other countries in line. Even that little rise in the blue line represents a couple hundred million people. The entire world has to slow and it won’t be easy to get them to do it. Telling a couple that they must limit the number of children they could have has always smacked of dictatorship and, in some cases, attempted genocide. We need to get people to understand that it is a matter of survival that we limit births. We see reality shows highlighting families with a bunch of kids and we think it is cute. The show isn’t cute, it’s scary. I’m talking future here. I’m not condemning any child that is already born, no matter how many are in the family. We have got to start thinking from this point about controlling the population. We have to let the government know that it isn’t political suicide to bring up the subject, both in the United States and in the United Nations and start a real debate and form a real plan. If you have two children and want a third, I would ask that you consider adoption. There are plenty of children that can use a good home. You would be doing them and the planet a great service.

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Pete is a retired software developer, a writer, and a martial arts instructor. He lives in Maryland with his wife Cathy and they are enjoying their retirement.
Pete is the author of four novels, "The Teacher", 500 Years from Home", and "The Long Journey Home" are available at Lulu.com; and "Pioneers" in available at the Kindle Book Store.